UNVEILING CONSUMER PURCHASE INTENTION OF HERBAL DRINKS IN SRI LANKA: INSIGHTS FROM THE THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR

Abstract

Raising health consciousness has opened up significant opportunities in different market segments. Herbal drinks are one such segment among them. But the herbal drinks market is a less focused area. In this vein, this study examines the impact of consumer purchase intention on the herbal drinks market in Sri Lanka through the insights of 'Theory of Planned Behaviour'. The study advocates the positivist philosophy accompanied by the deductive and quantitative approach. The study distributes a self-administered questionnaire to a sample of 385 individuals through the convenience sampling technique. 'Attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control' served as the independent variables, whereas the consumer purchase intention of herbal drinks' was the dependent variable. 'Pearson's Product-Moment Correlation and Multiple Linear Regression were employed as the data analysis techniques. The findings indicate that there is a strong correlation between attitude and perceived behavioural control on consumer intention of herbal drinks, whereas there is a moderate correlation between subjective norm and intention. The regression results conclude that there is a significant positive impact of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control on the purchase intention of herbal drinks. The manufacturers can develop new marketing strategies to uplift the consumer attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control in order to obtain the benefits in their sales. Since these three independent variables are the players that give rise to the actual behaviours.